Susan Alyson Stein Book order

This groundbreaking study of paintings and drawings of cypress trees by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is the first to focus on the artist's unique treatment of this subject. Challenging prevailing views about the artist's preoccupation with the flamelike trees that played such an important role in the works made in the South of France near the end of his life, Susan Alyson Stein retraces Van Gogh's progressive exploration of the subject from ink on paper to such iconic canvases as Starry Night (1889) and Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889). Drawing on new research, this richly illustrated publication explores the expressive force, symbolic meaning, and stylistic ambition of these pictures, illuminating the backstory of their invention. Excerpts from nineteenth-century poetry, novels, and travel writing, many translated into English for the first time, offer a rich and resonant context for these images. The volume also includes a scientific study of The Met's Cypresses (1889) and Wheat Field with Cypresses that provides fresh insights into the artist's process. Exhibition: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA (15.05-27.08.2023)

A physician and an amateur artist, Paul Gachet appreciated at an early date the genius of a number of painters struggling for recognition, including Cezanne, Pissarro, Monet, Guillaumin, and, especially, Van Gogh. They were among the many artists who became his friends and were frequent guests at Gachet's home in Auvers, where they were invited to set up their easels and paint still lifes or to experiment with new etching techniques in his attic studio. The artists gave or sold to their host pictures that then joined his wide-ranging collection. Artists' works were also studiously copied by Gachet, his son, Paul, and other amateurs in Gachet's circle. By the time of Dr. Gachet's death in 1909, the collection that filled his three-story house - containing paintings by now-famous Impressionist and Postimpressionist artists - had become legendary. For the first time, the Gachet donations - which contain not only paintings but also drawings, prints, copies, and such memorabilia as artists' palettes and still-life objects - are being exhibited outside France and, in this volume, published in their entirety.